History
The airline was established on 17 March 1967 under the name Air Volta. It was originally part owned by the Burkinabé government, part by Air France and part privately held. After the demise of Air Afrique, the state of Burkina Faso on 21 February 2001 privatised Air Burkina, transferring 56% of the shares to the AKFED / IPS consortium (part of the Aga Khan Development Network).
It purchased its first aircraft, an Embraer EMB-110 Bandeirante, in 1978, and added a second, a Fokker F28, in 1983. The airline has had serious debt problems, reaching a deficit of one billion CFA francs in 1992 (approx. € 1,500,000). However, by the time of privatization in 2001, the debt had largely been alleviated and the company was predicting an annual revenue of around 3.5 billion CFA francs (more than € 5,000,000). The company saw a general strike in 2002, when workers demanded a 25% wage increase. In the resulting conflict, the director-general of Air Burkina was forced to resign. The company works closely with Air Mali of Bamako, and codeshares with that airline on many routes.
Read more about this topic: Air Burkina
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We are told that men protect us; that they are generous, even chivalric in their protection. Gentlemen, if your protectors were women, and they took all your property and your children, and paid you half as much for your work, though as well or better done than your own, would you think much of the chivalry which permitted you to sit in street-cars and picked up your pocket- handkerchief?”
—Mary B. Clay, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 3, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“Well, for us, in history where goodness is a rare pearl, he who was good almost takes precedence over he who was great.”
—Victor Hugo (18021885)
“History takes time.... History makes memory.”
—Gertrude Stein (18741946)